Albums

Girls On Film - Pershore

Neil Watts 23/09/2010

Rating: 4/5

According to visitpershore.com, Pershore is “an unspoiled, picturesque market town, famed for its elegant Georgian architecture and magnificent Abbey” and is “surrounded by beautiful countryside and picturesque villages and is a haven for cyclists and ramblers”. Adding, “Poets such as John Betjeman have been inspired by Pershore's beauty.”

None of this is of any interest to Peter Adams (guitar/vocals) and Chris Weyms (drums/ vocals) of Girls On Film, it's merely their hometown and a convenient name for their debut
album. They are more likely to indulge in a few pints of cider, give anyone foolish enough to heckle them a thorough dressing down and fall over after blistering your ears with a brutal barrage of punky clatterpop, than marvel at the elegance of the town.

Pershore, the album not the town, sees them successfully juggling a sense of humour (their dry wit spills over during live performances) with the full-steam-ahead loud and dirty indie-
pop. Their tendency to dart from devilish screams to poppy harmonies and from folk inspired ditties to brash punk-rock poses quite a conundrum on the surface, but when it creates such unabashed fun, who cares?

Proceedings are kept short and sweet. They only venture past the three-minute mark on two occasions, on the jangling and emotional Kyoto, You Never Loved Me and the slow, dirty
grunge of Blood. Sweat. Tears.

Elsewhere The Burning of Hylton Road brims with barely concealed aggression and the chorus of “see them burning, burning on the bonfire” makes you wonder what the road's
inhabitants did to arouse such fury. The fantastically dumb digital single He-man bounces with child-like joy and is simply brilliant while album closer Break is all slacker college rock stylings as Weyms leads Adams in a bleary eyed ode to lost love.